DESTINY LIES WITHIN ONE’S OWN BELIEF
Nawab Vaqar
ENGLISH 102
Professor: Teddy Chocos
29th February 2013
NAWAB VAQAR
Sovereignty is one of the most important roles played in molding an
individual’s identity. However, in every generation sovereignty is taken away by
higher supreme powers in order to keep one restricted to thinking outside the
box. Taking away ones sovereignty is to take away ones identity and one will not
truly find his/her roots until they do not gain back their sovereignty because
having the authority to think, decide and self-regulate is what creates into ones
identity and without doing so and not experiencing independent interpretations,
one will never be able to survive reality. Although, to a certain stage or to a
certain age in life every individual needs to be dependent on someone may it be
parents, elder siblings, teachers, but after a child reaches a level of maturity,
many questions start to arise which don’t make sense and these questions can
only be answered if one has the freedom to think openly without any boundaries.
At this stage, a child should be able to gain sovereignty by knowing that their
questions can only be answered by non other then their own independent
thinking, and to answer them they need to cross all boundaries in order for them
to make more sense of life and understand who they really are and what is their
true identity.
In this generation the society is very critical and bias and that causes a lot of
issues between many people. Children are born being fed certain information
and are restricted towards many others. These children are brought up in such a
way that without question they surrender and become followers of whoever it is
that may be leading them. A great example of this is the period of Joseph Kony in
Uganda; the fear that he had instilled in the minds of the children all over Uganda
had became a huge issue, however because all the children were afraid of the
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harsh torture that he used to put children through, they had no better option but
to surrender in order to survive. Humans are given the greatest power in the
world which is a brain, it helps one make decisions, think, react, imagine, and
create; and if we were to just surrender our sovereignty and follow certain
groups or certain people we would have never been blessed with a brain rather,
we would have taken space for some other species. A philosophical documentary
on the bases of Socrates’ belief on life and reality, Socrates was a great Greek
philosopher of the time of ancient Greek. The documentary states many of
Socrates’ quotes and reasoning, Socrates says: “thinking logically about our lives
might help us be more certain about ourselves or more independent” hence he
speaks similarly to the point that every human has the right to question
themselves and make decisions themselves because doing so helps one become
an independent thinker and an independent decision maker and it is very
possible to become independent this way because one gets the freedom to open
doors and thoughts and that helps one start to become independent because this
helps the mind to think on its own without the conscience of fear, which
automatically helps one stop relying on others.
People think that by following the “Beaten Track” they will be able to find a
way in life much easier, which will be much simpler and not very hard to do.
However, the only reason people think that this option is the most righteous
option is because the majority agrees to it and whoever doesn’t, get to be
criticized and segregated from the entire society. Also, if one thinks about it,
following someone’s “beaten track” in order to open doors for answers is just
like taking a good students exam and copying the whole thing and submitting it
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in. Which is called plagiarism and it is a major offense to not only educational
institutes but everywhere in the world. If that is so, why isn’t following in
someone else’s shoes wrong? Or why isn’t seeking a life through someone else’s
hardship wrong? It is equally the same thing it is just society based assumptions
which everyone tends to follow a lot and end up lost and unanswered in their
own lives. Many keep questioning their ambition, their pride and their abilities in
life which is why they end up not being able to reach the peak that they could, its
just the way society has engraved itself into everyone’s minds hence
automatically creating barriers and boundaries which don’t let one cross
mentally or physically either.
Socrates was a philosopher who was against societies norms and beliefs and
so was the society with Socrates. However, just because he controlled his
sovereignty and his life he was blamed as someone against society, but he was
trying to show the people that what they are doing is foolish and it will never
answer anyone’s questions and everyone will end up lost. Nobody listened and
he was exiled. This is a great example of how to this date majority of the society
is the same and still to this date majority of the people are lost and full of
questions about life because they all never tried thinking outside the box which
was caused due to the fear that was instilled in their mind, the fear of being the
minority of the society. Socrates also questioned, “people follow others and walk
together like a herd of sheep, scared to be separated from the pack. Why is that?”
It is the same questions which millions of people know about but never try
answering. People tend to follow what everyone else follows, they believe what
everyone else believes, they do what everyone else does and they do all this just
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to live just like everyone else and to be safe like everyone else. Although Socrates
“refused to accept that just because the majority supported an opinion, that
made it right” and that is what many don’t understand even to this date,
everyone has a different life and a different mind, not everyone is the same and
not everyone’s destiny has to match. Hence, even if the majority says something
is right it doesn’t have to be right it could be wrong and giving into it due to fear
of oppression or failure will always leave one claustrophobic full of questions
which will end up leaving one lost and unanswered.
If a majority likes something or believes in something doesn’t mean everyone
has to but the reason why many people give in is because if they are not a part of
the majority then they are not a part of the society at all. For example in an
interview with a man running a firm with eleven other candidates; said that he
was pointed wrong for a certain amendment which he made and stuck to,
however he said that because the majority of the firm didn’t agree and he was
being criticized throughout he was forced to drop the idea because he feared he
would lose his job, his financial support and his reputation. Many reasons are
enforced on people either psychologically or emotionally in order for them to
become followers and this fear builds up only when the majority starts to think
or believe the opposite of what the individual thinks or believes.
The reason people have lost confidence is because of how the society has
turned out to be and how people around have become. It is more of a
responsibility and less of a question of independent decision for certain people
hence giving them no choice but to surrender. For example the lower class who
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don’t have much money to survive or people who have a family to take care of,
these kind of people have no choice but to give in and surrender their
sovereignty hence, they have no identity of their own.
Another great philosopher Percy also believes that humans have lost the way
of seeing therefore they cannot really understand who they really are. He gives a
very good example an essay “The Loss of the Creature” where it shows how all
the tourists follow the tour guide’s “Beaten Track” to see the Grand Canyon and
how they do whatever he tells them to do and take pictures from only where he
tells them to rather then going and exploring the place with their own eyes and
with their own interpretation. He says “a reader may surrender sovereignty over
that which has been written about, just as a consumer may surrender
sovereignty over a thing which has been theorized about”, trying to express the
same point that people tend to believe everything that has already been done or
said by the majority even if it may be wrong. This is either caused due to
invisible boundaries that have been instilled in the brains or either due to fear of
oppression or being the minority of the society.
As facts are present about how sovereignty has been lost in the majority of the
world. It is still not impossible for one to try to step up by thinking differently,
but it is just the fact that it has become so normal that saying something outside
the box makes it feel like it is something or it is some thought nobody has come
across and there is no reason to come think about it. People may fear that they
will be oppressed by society, but they don’t know that the whole society is
already being oppressed and the only way to be free is to “find confidence in
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your own belief” and by doing that one will get the confidence to think
independently and decide independently which will help gain back sovereignty
and that will just make one a leader of their own. This will help one to identify
who they really are and finally jump out of the inception they are living in, into
real life.
Socrates once said “if one is not satisfied or doesn’t find the truth in
themselves, they live an unhappy life even if they are well off or have a
comparatively good life”, hence being said it makes it certain that in order to be
happy one must find the truth in themselves, in order to find the truth one must
know of their identity, in order to find identity one must be confident in their
belief and in their decisions, in order to have confidence in ones own beliefs one
must switch from the “Beaten Track” to their own individual and independent
track and one must stop surrendering to leaders and become a leader and that is
how one will gain sovereignty; and when one gains sovereignty happiness and
prosperity come automatically along with wealth and health.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY:
 Percy, Walker- “The Loss of the Creature”
 Plato- “The Allegory of the Cave”s

"01 - Socrates on Self-Confidence - Philosophy: A Guide to
Happiness - YouTube." YouTube. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar.
2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S24FxdvfOko&sns
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